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Microsoft Word has a handy feature that allows you to share your documents with others for group projects. This means that many people could be making changes to a Word document at the same time and it can be tricky to keep track of what is being changed and by who. Luckily you can keep track of these changes in Microsoft Word.
Follow our guide below so you can stay on top of your group document editing.
How to Track Changes in Word
Microsoft Word comes with a feature known as ‘Track Changes’ which allows you to do just that – track all the changes made to your documents.
It works by highlighting the edits made by different editors in different colors and styles so they are easily recognizable and easy to follow.
To do this, you need to enable Track Changes in your Microsoft Word document.
Step
Find the ‘Review’ tab
First, open up the document in question, and on the top main ribbon menu you need to find the ‘Review’ tab.
It can be found between ‘Mailings’ and ‘View’ towards the middle of your screen. Select it to open up the Review menu.
Step
Find Track Changes
Again, towards the middle of your screen on the Review menu, you can find the ‘Track Changes’ option.
It will also have an icon of a sheet of paper with a blue pen. Select it, and from the drop down menu that appears, select ‘Track Changes’ once more.
This will change the format of any edits you make to the document and add a mark to the margin indicating where you have made a change.
Step
Use Keyboard Shortcut
If you are looking for a shortcut, you can hold down the ‘Control’, ‘Shift’ and ‘E’ button on your keyboard – this will automatically enable (and disable) Track Changes on Microsoft Word.
Making And Removing Track Changes Comments
Track Changes is a great tool for group projects, but sometimes you may want to add comments without actually adding a change to the document.
It’s a great way to give feedback and suggest changes, and you can still do this with Track Changes enabled – so let’s go through the steps.
Step
Highlight the text you want to comment on
First, highlight the text you want to make a comment on by using your mouse.
Step
Find the ‘Review’ tab > New Comment
Then, on the top ribbon menu, find the ‘Review’ tab once again and select it to open up the Review menu. Find the ‘New Comment’ option – it will have a speech bubble icon with a blue plus sign (+) .
Select it and a comment box will pop up for you to type in your response. Click anywhere to deselect when you are done and the comment will remain.
Step
Replying to a comment
If you want to respond to a comment, there will be a ‘Reply’ option on the comment so you can select it and type in your response in the reply box.
Step
Removing a comment
To remove a comment, you can either select the ‘Resolve’ option on the comment itself, or use the ‘Remove Comment’ option on the Review menu.
By choosing the ‘Resolve’ route, the comment will remain visible on the document but it will be grayed out, indicating that it is no longer relevant.
On the other hand, deleting the comment using the Review tab will remove it completely from the document.
Conclusion
Track Changes is a great feature included in Microsoft Word that makes group editing so much easier.
This means you can get projects done quickly and stay on top of any changes and edits made without your input. It’s a great feature to use as it also allows you to continue making comments. And you can now track changes with confidence.
